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Towels: the most useful items in the universe

If your coworkers came to work this morning clutching towels, sure, they could just be really excited about the long weekend. But since it's May 25th, it's more likely they're banding with other Douglas Adams fansÂ toÂ commemorateÂ Towel Day. I came to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy via its MS-DOS Apple IIe game version--'90 was a long, dryÂ summer, and I needed to engage in fantasies in which the phenomenal world no longer existed. So: towels. For those of us who are sans towel today, here's some history on the tradition,Â taken from towel headquarters:

Partly it has great practical value--you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth...you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

If merely toting isn't enough, it's possible there's a towel party in your area--check the forums. Has anyone ever been to one? This one last year in Finland looks festive. Towels don't exactly beget light sabers, but today is also Universal Day of the Jedi, which marks the 30th anniversary of the original film's release.

Also on Mental Floss:

DID YOU KNOW? Marlon Brando hated memorizing lines so much that he posted cue cards everywhere to help him get through scenes.
He even asked for lines to be written on an actress's posterior. (That request was denied.)